Paused for a moment on the edge of all the future
all our lives will surely tangle or unweave now
and all of these potentials,
like hands on my shoulder, steady me.
So let it begin and all the rest of my life go on
I no longer wait or care for the past to resurrect itself
this life can be invested in my future now
I can weave and sort my friends and lovers into the days of my life
I want to walk out each day excited
about what could happen again
and care nothing for what has gone by
I've been too long tangled with the old ways
so carefully unknotting our lives and feelings
learning that exquisite patience that lies half way
between compassion and self preservation
But, its done... let me depart and begin anew
this time not to bury my freedom with love and security
or to hold myself untouched by love's whip and passion
I want to find that balance point there in my heart, between...
there, where on the edge of my best,
I can live each day like it was the last
I want to dance to life's mysteries and paradoxes
as the fountains dance to the wind and the mimes to the crowd
these things are not to weep for
and, sometimes ... in those graceful but oh so brief moments,
perhaps in a lover's eyes or in a passage of my son's growth
I'll see something behind it all ...
timeless ... smiling thru at me
Brother Methuselah, here in all of us as we gamble our lives
untouched yet compassionate ... he waits for us to begin
and he smiles at us, a spiritual joy and promise within.
gallagher
07-04-78
— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —